Doctor Who: The Silent Mansion
by Docintweed
Summary: The TARDIS picks up spacial interferance in Cardiff, 1933. The Doctor and Ace decide to investigate, leading to a haunted house where it's residents are being picked off, one by one.


The Silent Mansion

Doctor Who

Harkway Manor, Cardiff, 31st October, 1923.

The night was young; a mere 7 minutes had passed since 9:00pm. William A Morris had quickly gathered his night clothes and retired to bed. With unsteady steps up the many worn down stairs, he eventually reached his large, yet lonely room. The cold autumn air had let itself into William's window; it quickly hit his lungs like a blade to the skin. With an outbreak of uncontrollable coughing, he managed to close his window, sealing the lonely silence that came with this time of the year. He pulled back his quilt, and slowly lowered himself onto his agonizingly uncomfortable mattress. Strange, he could have sworn he'd shut his door behind him; he was no longer confident in trusting his memory, so he quickly dismissed the idea and turned over. His futile attempts to sleep were made in vein, in fact, it'd be easier to wrestle a bear; his wife had only passed (due to mysterious circumstances) a fortnight ago. Now, William was getting quite old, and he didn't scare easily, but there was a certain 'chill' in the air; one that left him questioning why his door had apparently moved since he last saw it. He reached for his lamp, but the room was dark, and he only succeeded in knocking it off of his bedside cabinet. He swore and bent over to pick it up; strangely, the door had closed again, he sat upright. Something was definitely standing by his door, something...inhuman. He pulled back his quilt, and climbed out of his bed; he rapidly lost his footing and fell to the floor. His heart felt like it was forcing its way up his throat; he rolled onto his back and looked up, something was standing over him, it reached out for him, and he screamed.

...

An unearthly sound had started brewing in the Welsh countryside, it sounded like the oldest being in the universe, taking deep, long, agonising breathes. The sound started to get louder, until it eventually stopped. Exactly the same time this sound started, a big, blue, box had begun forcing its way into existence. The box was now as clear as day, and, as if to proof this, the doors swung open. A man walked out of it, not a terribly tall man, standing about 5ft 6. The man was wearing a dark brown jacket, a white hat and clutching an umbrella, using it like a walking stick (although, the man only seemed middle age). A younger woman followed him, carrying an oversized backpack, and wearing a black jacket covered in badges.

"3rd October, 1933" The man said.

"Professor?" The woman asked.

The man seemed preoccupied with his surroundings.

"Professor!" She repeated.

The man spun round as if he'd only just noticed she was there.

"Hmm? What is it Ace?" The Doctor said in a serious, yet friendly voice.

"Why are we here?" She asked.

"Well, the TARDIS picked up some spacial interference around this area." The Doctor explained, his attention had returned to the surroundings.

"Spacial interference? That's well suspicious!" Ace remarked.

"Indeed, I thought we could investigate." The Doctor said, with a smile to himself.

"Yeah, but investigate where? You're not gonna find anything here, professor." Ace noted.

"How many times Ace? It's Doctor!" The Doctor snapped with a groan.

"Sorry... but a field? Surely there's nothing devious going on in a field..."

"Appearances aren't everything, Ace. Take the TARDIS for example, would you expect a vast machine capable of travelling through dimensions inside that little blue box? Besides, the interference isn't coming from this field; it's coming from a residence two and a half miles away."

"Two and a half miles away! Couldn't you have parked a bit closer then?"

The Doctor smiled. "No! The walk will do you good!"

...

A small, chubby, bald man was sitting in his lounge, he sighed, and reached out for his tea, it was getting cold. He brought it up to his lips, to take a first sip...

*Knock* *Knock* *Knock*

He sighed, put down his tea, and marched towards the door. He pulled at the handle and swung it open; a small man was standing there, along with a young woman.

"How do you do?" The Doctor said, with a tip of his hat.

"What is it? What do you want?" The man said.

"You're very rude." The Doctor said sternly.

"Professor!" Ace interrupted.

"How dare you! What do you want with me? I have a have a revolver under the stairs, and I'm not afraid to use it on you!" The man threatened, his voice was breaking, he was clearly more scared than the Doctor or Ace was.

"Listen, we're not going to hurt you, the Doctor just thinks there's something funny going on in y-" Ace started but was cut off by the Doctor.

"Now, don't get carried away Ace." The Doctor muttered to her. He held up a small, square piece of paper. "I'm a detective, here to investigating a possible murder at this residence."

"I'm so sorry, detective. Please come through." The man led the Doctor and Ace into his mansion.

...

"Murder, you say?" The man, who introduced himself as Martin, started.

"Yes... what can you tell me about the history of this house?" the Doctor asked.

"Well, there were two unusual deaths nearly ten years ago." Martin began.

"Ah, that'll be it." The Doctor grinned.

Martin looked confused, but the Doctor just smiled and walked out of the room, looking for possible clues.

"Doctor, what was that thing?" Ace asked.

"Hmm?" The Doctor appeared distracted.

"That piece of paper that got us in here?" Ace said, loud enough to snap the Doctor out of his trance, but low enough so that Martin couldn't hear her voice.

"Ah, yes. Psychic paper; something of a prototype, I'm 'taking it out for a spin'." The Doctor grinned.

Ace yawned. "Martin said we could stay the night, if it'll help our investigation. I'm going to bed, night professor."

"Hmm..." The Doctor was obviously distracted with his investigation...

...

Night took over; an eerie sense of dread had quickly polluted the atmosphere. Martin's butler sat down in his private quarters; he looked swiftly around his room, nothing. The room was still, but still managed that haunted feeling it gave off to its occupant. The butler shut his eyes, he'd become accustom to this, nothing to worry about, just his imagination. Suddenly, the door blew open. Something was in the doorway, a hooded figure wearing a long cloak. The figure was jet black; it glided over to him slowly.

"Impossible..." he whispered.

Within a second, the wraith was upon him; it's face was like a human's, except it's skin was a shade of dark grey, it's eyes donning a jet black colour, it lacked any nose, any other human features, apart from its eyes and mouth. Its mouth had no teeth, or lips, or tongue; just more blackness, and it was staring right into the butler's eyes. The butler screamed.

The Doctor sprinted into the room, followed by Martin and a maid. The creature retreated through a wall before anyone had a chance to see it. The butler was a pale purple colour, like his very soul had been drawn out of him.

"I think there's a vampire living in the mansion..." the Doctor said, coldly.

...

"Doctor, I think I've found something." It was 9:00am, and Ace was examining under one of the guest room's beds.

The Doctor hurried over; there was a large supply of dark green 'slime' under the bed. The Doctor pulled out a glass thermometer and stuck it in the substance. He studied it, and then sniffed it. He then pulled out his piece of psychic paper and wrapped it around the slime drenched thermometer. He examined the paper, Gallifreyen symbols started to appear on it. He smiled, and dropped the psychic paper.

"I know exactly what we're dealing with." The Doctor said smugly.

"What is it professor?" Ace asked.

"Shadow blood." He replied.

"Since when did shadows bleed? Professor, tell me what's going on."

"It's essentially a vampire, a shadow vampire. It feeds by absorbing the blood of other life forms; the beauty of it is, it can hide inside walls, and other places inaccessible to you or me."

...

Martin decided to busy himself by cleaning his room, anything to distract him from the murder of his butler. Suddenly, something crossed the corner of his eye.

"Who's there?" He demanded.

The Shadow crawled out of the wall behind him; it reached for his shoulder and pulled him through the wall. The sound of Martin's scream echoed through the mansion. The Doctor and Ace were quickly in the room, but not quickly enough.

"I think the shadow's hungry, not just hungry... it's starving. But it must be hiding somewhere, in one of these walls." The Doctor started examining each wall. Suddenly he came across a part where the wallpaper had been ripped.

"Ah, a tell-tale sign when shadow hunting. A little rip in the wallpaper, where the spacial structure has began weakening. Whenever you see rips in the wall paper, there's a living shadow in your house... Or of course the wallpaper's getting on a bit." The Doctor grinned.

...

Madison, the maid who worked at the mansion, was a perfectionist. The slightest change in the mansion's appearance, and she'd notice it. So, when she noticed large scratch marks in one of the doors, as if a large cat had attacked it, she was horrified. But this was nothing compared to ice cold breathing on the back of her neck. She noticed a dark shadow casted from behind her, her eyes looked up only to notice a window, with the reflection of the wraith. She turned on the spot, only to find there was nothing there.

...

The Doctor was busy in the garden, holding a small contraption, which had a small spinning disk on it. The disk stopped, he tapped it, with no success. He was interrupted by the maid running outside, she was hysterical; she must have seen something truly terrifying. The Doctor and Ace hurried over to her.

"It was there... It was right behind me!" The maid screamed.

"What was? Where did you see it?" The Doctor asked.

The made continued to cry, completely oblivious to the Doctor's questions. Suddenly, there was a loud bang coming from upstairs. The Doctor quickly sprinted towards the noise.  
"Ace! Stay with Madison!" He called as he ran.

The Doctor quickly reached the source of the sound. There was a large vertical crack in one of the walls, with a large, dark, supernatural stain leaking from the crack. The Doctor smiled smugly, and proceeded to tap the wall. He spun on the spot; standing behind him, was the wraith.

"I'm the Doctor, how do you do?" The Doctor greeted.

The wraith let out an unearthly scream, and stretched out its bony limb; the Doctor placed the hook of his umbrella upon the wraith's arm. It simply fell through, as if the wraith wasn't there at all.  
"Interesting, you seem to have full control of your spacial coordinates; you can bend time around yourself." The Doctor looked at a dark green liquid dropping from the wraith. "You seem to be injured... what on Earth, or indeed not on Earth, could harm you?"

The wraith screamed again and lunged at the Doctor. The Doctor swiftly rolled to the side, and the wraith escaped through the wall. The Doctor stood up and brushed himself down; the green blood quickly re-caught his attention. He pulled out his handkerchief, and dipped it in the alien blood.

"Doctor!" Ace's voice filled the hallways.

...

The maid was dead, she had stabbed herself; naturally, Ace had tried to stop her, but she had over powered her. The Doctor was quickly at her side, he claimed she'd lost her mind, she essentially died of fright. The Doctor and Ace had returned upstairs, to the wall where the wraith had escaped through. The Doctor held out his hand.  
"Nitro-9" He requested.  
Ace handed over a small metal cylinder.

"Ten seconds? Ace, the fuse?" The Doctor asked.

"Oh, yeah, ten seconds." She replied.

He placed the explosives at the foot of the wall.

"Out you come, or we're going to cut your link to this dimension. You'll be trapped, forever in the 23rd dimension." The Doctor threatened.

The wraith clearly shown some understanding; it quickly pulled itself through the wall. Ace took an involuntary step back, when she saw it. The Doctor stood his ground.

"Leave this planet in peace. Or I'll stop you." The Doctor said.

"Yeah, I'll blow you up here and now!" Ace added.

The wraith let out a hideous laughing noise, its arm reached for Ace. The Doctor pulled her back, and they broke into a run.

"2, 1..." The Doctor counted. The explosives at the bottom of the wall reacted, and took the whole wall with it. "At least the ghost can't escape back through that wall now." The Doctor smiled.

The wraith let out one of its awful screams, and pursued the Doctor and Ace.

"How do we fight a vampire ghost?" asked Ace.

"Oh, you know me. I've always got a plan..." The Doctor said, with a small grin to himself.

The Doctor took Ace by the hand and led her outside.

"What time is it Ace?" He asked.

"I dunno, about twelve?" She responded.

"Exactly, when the sun's at its highest point in the sky." The Doctor said cunningly.

The wraith broke through the door. With a hideous shriek, it noticed the sun.

"And from what I've heard, vampires don't like sunlight." The Doctor added.

The Wraith's cloak started to burn, until there was nothing but a tall silhouette, burning in the sunlight; eventually, the wraith was nothing but a pile of dust.

"Hmm, its chromosomes were clearly designed for planets that orbit dwarf stars. It can't take the UV rays supplied by your sun, too much for its pigmentation. Boom goes the dynamite." The Doctor observed.

"So, what was it doing on Earth?" Ace asked.

"Hmm? Oh, it was injured, just a scavenger lost on the planet Earth. It must have been running from something powerful, and then punched a hole in the universe, and ended up here. What I want to know is what it was running from, what attacked it and caused it to bleed, and run. Luckily for us; I have a DNA sample." The Doctor grinned as he help up his handkerchief, soaked in the alien blood.

"So, what now? We're going to hunt something powerful enough that can scare that thing?" Ace asked.

"Yes..." The Doctor said.

And they both strolled up the hill, taking that long journey back to the TARDIS, ready to start a new adventure; leaving the silent mansion in peace.

THE END.


End file.
